The tragedy of tone deafness in Off Topic

ID:47680
 
Sep 5 2008, 9:10 pm
This is about politics, so if you're literally tone-deaf, my condolences, but I got nothing for ya.

Here's an article by Bill Maher. Since he posted it on salon.com, there may be very few redneck rubes who will read it, aside from me. But we redneck rubes -- excuse me: us redneck rubes, and/or we-all redneck rubes -- have a way of discussing this kind of thing over our steaming bowls of roadkill stew.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/05/maher_obama/ index.html

Delightfully droll, don't you think? See if you can identify the smug line that ticked me off enough to post a link to the article. I'll give you a hint: I graduated with honors from a pretty good college and it *still* ticked me off.

#1 Sep 5 2008, 9:31 pm
The fun thing about this election cycle has been watching Obama's biggest supporters accidentally keep touching live wires that only draw attention to his flaws. Reasonable people can disagree over whether Obama is elitist, although based on his statements I could tell you which side of that argument would be wrong. But in Maher's case I think the only reason he doesn't see it is that Maher is at least twice the elitist anyone has ever accused Obama of being. How can an ostensibly intelligent guy actually say (in paraphrase) "You dumb hicks don't know what elitism really is!" without realizing it's an incredibly stupid concept to commit to words in any form?

The Wal-Mart line is priceless--but frankly not a surprise. I've known for years that Bill Maher is only capable of two forms of expression: forgettable drivel and EPIC FAIL.
#2 Sep 5 2008, 10:22 pm
Lummox JR wrote:
The Wal-Mart line is priceless--but frankly not a surprise.

We have a winnah! Take your choice of any of the large stuffed animals! Or, in this case, anything you can find on a Google Images search for large pictures of stuffed animals!

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#3 Sep 6 2008, 8:12 am
Hmm, his point is valid though....and still not a surprise. The Republican party(and the Democratic) is notorious for running smug campaigns. I mean, look at the Swift Boat tactic, that turned a War Hero into someone who committed treason(according to the Rural USA).
#4 Sep 6 2008, 11:08 am
Kerry got three Purple Heart awards, but that doesn't imply "war hero"; it just implies he did actually fight in a war. The term "Swiftboating" comes form the fact that people in his own unit spoke out to deflate Kerry's embellishment of his own record.

And if it's Obama's supporters going out of their way to call most of America driveway-resurfacing idiots, wouldn't that be the smug side? The Republicans aren't running smug; they're accusing Obama of so being. Whether that's true is up to you to decide, but clearly the word "smug" doesn't apply to the McCain campaign or even the '04 Bush run against Kerry. Calling out your opponent for puffery is the very opposite of smug. It may be negative, muckracking, demagoguery, boorish, take your pick, but it ain't smug.
#5 Sep 6 2008, 8:08 pm
Negative*.

*-Changing my wording, not correcting a spelling error.